Anya tsk'ed in vexation as she meticulously went through the latest shipping manifesto. She had clearly ordered 11 boxes of runestones at 15 % discount, but the paper (and the physical evidence) showed 15 boxes at 11 % discount. Their logistics chain was still very much in its initial stages, and this kind of sloppiness on the supplier side didn't bode well for a long and fruitful business relationship. Making a mental note to contact a premier Italian manufacturer, she waved absentmindedly to an elder lady who left without making a purchase. No "have a nice day's" for her.
Continuing her scrutiny, she took a quick look at the door when the bell didn't chime when her subconscious timer told her the door should have closed behind the woman. Another potential customer had stepped in before the door was fully closed.
Then her gaze returned to follow the lithe figure who had stepped behind a glass cabinet, now blocking them from clear view. 'Go on,' she mentally hurried the person to return to full view. What she had briefly glimpsed was definitely worth a second look.
When the person finally passed the cabinet, facing away from her to check the contents of a bookshelf, she got her prize. A very nice figure, and male just as she liked them, with a definitely ogle-worthy ass. Perfectly-fitting black jeans with the back seam disappearing from view just where it should. She made another mental note to remind Xander to keep exercising those glutes. Her boyfriend was definitely nicely shaped but unfortunately not present at the moment so that she could discreetly show him what he should be aspiring towards. And he always preferred those baggy pants which completely hid those assets he already possessed...
Stepping around the counter she made her way covertly towards the young man. She made it look like she was checking the shelves even though there was no-one to call her out for her harmless little ruse. Her little, sideways glances gave her glimpses of brown skin, slender hands and coal-black hair tied in a messy, high ponytail. He was maybe three inches taller than herself, which in her tally was a big minus. She liked her men noticeably taller – Xander had six inches on her...
"Can I help you?" the boy suddenly asked, still facing away from her and surprising her so that she almost stumbled. "Although, that should have been your line," he continued, finally turning around.
"You!" Anya half-gasped, half-shrieked – quite a feat.
"Why, yes, I'd like to think so," came the deadpanned answer, accompanied by a raised eyebrow. To Anya it was now quite clear who the newcomer was.
"You're not welcome here," Anya stated firmly and straightened her back to bring her to her full height. "Go away."
Rowan narrowed his eyes as she gave the scowling young woman a once-over. There was something...
"You're the vengeance demon," he huffed finally and rolled his eyes. "Should have seen that immediately. Oh, but you don't have any power left. Did someone make a mistake, and a wish go boom?"
"It's all your slut of a Slayer's fault!" Anya shouted, now fully in the angry land and, she realised, in the defence. "She'll get hers as will you by extension."
She would have continued but was left gaping as Rowan doubled over in side-splitting laughter. Grinding her teeth together, she took a determined step forward and kicked the infuriating Scooby Xander had told all those stories about squarely in the shin.
"Owww! What the fuck?" Rowan bellowed, more in surprise than real pain. Straightening his back again, he used the motion to knee the annoying little upstart in the groin.
Now it was Anya's turn to double-over from the short, sharp shock that invaded her nervous system. Mind practically empty, she launched herself forward by instinct and caught her opponent in the middle, sending them both sprawling to the floor. Now reduced to her primal instincts, Anya started slapping and clawing at the growling creature under her.
Naturally, just then the store door opened, and Giles and Xander stepped in.
"Ummm, hello Rupert... Xander," Rowan absentmindedly greeted his fellow Scoobies from the floor while concentrating on holding the shopkeeper's wrists in his grasp and trying to keep her sharp nails away from his face.
"Xander!" Anya squeaked, her voice an octave higher than normally. "This... this isn't what it looks like." In her anger she hadn't realised she was straddling her opponent's waist with her dress hitched up so that it left her legs almost bare. The fact that he was bucking his hips in semi-serious attempts to dislodge her didn't help the appearance of things any.
"Dear Lord, it's good to see you," Giles murmured tightly after he had pulled Rowan to his feet and straight into a bear hug. In the background Anya and Xander were in the middle of a full-blown argument which eventually ended with Anya storming out of the shop and leaving Xander looking helpless near the counter.
"Rupert, oxygen," Rowan groaned when Rupert's arms were threatening to crack his ribs. "It feels good to be back."
"When did you...?"
"This morning. I flew in yesterday and visited Angel and Cordelia in L.A."
"Your stuff... did you already drop them off at...?"
"No," Rowan shook his head. "Rupert, Angel offered me his mansion for a place to stay here. I accepted."
Giles' brief bang of disappointment quickly gave way to acceptance and then actual joy. He had really enjoyed having Rowan for a flatmate, but now he realized that the time for shared quarters had long since passed. Especially when Faith would eventually follow Rowan back to Sunnydale.
"I understand," Giles nodded, really meaning it. "I'm truly happy you were able to come to such an excellent arrangement. Your room still has..."
"Rupert, details later," Rowan interrupted him with a raised hand. "Xander, everything alright?" he called past Giles' shoulder to where the boy in question was still standing still in apparent confusion. "Aren't you happy to see me?"
"Yeah, yeah," Xander responded absentmindedly and then shook his head briefly. "Wow, it's good to see you, man," he grinned and approached Rowan and Giles. "Can't believe you're back. You're back, right?"
"I'm back," Rowan nodded and touched Xander's raised fist with his. "Hugs later?"
After his sudden coughing fit had subsided, Xander licked his lips somewhat nervously. "Ummm... about Anya...?"
"I don't like her, she doesn't like me," Rowan shrugged. "Besides that, we're pretty much ok."
Another surreal sitcom seemed to be raising its head and sniffing the air. "Erm, you've seen each other for all like five seconds..."
"More than enough for us to hate each other," Rowan winked. "I have this thing against those who think that becoming a demon is something to aspire towards, and she hates me because of Faith. From what Faith told me, Anyanka stalked her for a while after the Box of Gavrok exchange with Wilkins. Eventually Faith confronted her in Cordelia's shop and caused her to lose her powers of vengeance. This loss of powers locked her into her current physical manifestation."
"What?" Xander gaped, imitated by Giles. "She never..."
"Besides," Rowan cut Xander off. "If I'm not too much mistaken, there's another reason as well."
"You know...?"
"Yes, and Rupert," Rowan turned to address the Watcher. "This has nothing to do with you. I'd appreciate it if you left it for us to deal with."
"I understand," Rupert nodded sagely as Xander bid them both a hurried bye and sprinted out of the shop in pursuit of his girlfriend.
The less he let himself get tangled up in Scooby love affairs the better.
To his relief, it didn't take Xander long to catch up with Anya. Perhaps unconsciously she had been following the direct route from the Magic Box to his parents' house.
"Ahn, please," he pleaded out of breath, after having rushed up to her and taken a hold of her shoulder. "You're not being reasonable."
"Reasonable?" Anya snorted but allowed herself to be stopped. "You should have stood with me, defended me."
"Defended you?" Xander asked in disbelief. "From what I saw and heard, you were the one doing most of the attacking."
"I had a perfectly good excuse!"
"And I have several perfectly good excuses for not attempting to attack Rowan. First and foremost being my implicit desire to keep all my limbs attached for the foreseeable future."
"Humph," Anya huffed. "You should have at least made the effort, for my honour if nothing else."
"And what good would that have done?" Xander asked reasonably. "I would have been a bloody mess on the floor without him having to break a sweat."
"Are you saying...?"
"Yes," Xander nodded. "He really is that good."
"Ok," Anya was willing to concede the point. "But what about the Slayer? He knows what she did to both me and you, and he still stays with her. In my books, he is guilty by both extension and association."
"Anya," Xander started seriously. He laid his hands on her shoulders. "First, Faith is a Slayer, and you were apparently 'stalking' her in your vengeance demon form. To me that sounds like fair game. Second, I've told you I'll deal with my issues with Faith when the time is right. Rowan knows but is taking a very reasonable impartial stance, for which I'm grateful. And third, do you really dislike being with me that much?"
"What?" Anya gaped. "Of course not. Haven't I told you many times, how satisfied you keep me?"
"That's just the point. If you were still a vengeance demon, we'd have never met. And who's to say it wasn't fated? Would you trade what we have for a chance to return to what you were?"
'Of course, in a heartbeat!' Anya wanted to shout out, but a nagging doubt in the back of her mind made her keep her mouth shut. "Things used to be so much simpler," she muttered instead. "Now everything's complicated."
"Let me try to make it simple," Xander offered. "Given the chance, would you really try to exact some misplaced vengeance on Faith – and Rowan by extension as you put it? Or is the feeling just a residue springing up from what you used to be?"
"Xander!" Anya snapped in irritation. "Stop being so reasonable. You're making me lose my train of thought."
"Well...," Xander drawled and leaned in to kiss Anya's neck. It really was the time to be the reasonable one. "Maybe you could start searching for it in my bed. It's as good a place as any."
"Xander...," Anya moaned now fully distracted.
"Yeah?"
"Nothing. Let's go."
After Xander had left to find Anya again, Giles gave Rowan the grand tour of the Magic Box. While they were idly moving from shelf to shelf and cabinet to cabinet, each brought the other pretty much up to date as far as the Vision that sent him back to Sunnydale was concerned.
It was already past sunset when Rowan bid Giles goodbye for the day with a promise to visit his apartment the next day. A full Scooby meeting was also very much in the works. There had been no sight of Buffy or Willow in the Magic Box that day.
Leaving the shop, Rowan decided that he might as well get immediately back into the groove. Heading in the opposite direction from Crawford Street he set his course for the Restfield cemetery, partly hoping he might bump into Buffy there.
Restfield turned out to be as quiet as a... cemetery anywhere else except at a Soft Place. When, after fifteen minutes of idly walking along the gravel paths, Rowan had not seen nor sensed anything, he jumped on top of a large tomb and sat down to assess the situation. Rupert had talked at length about a hybrid creature called Adam the scientists of the Initiative had constructed. That Adam was almost certainly the monster of Cordelia's vision and the mysterious "314" Ethan Rayne had warned Rupert about. If he was now at large, it was only natural that those who had spoken about him in hushed tones earlier had now gone even deeper underground.
Fusing human and demon parts together with technology was almost unfathomable. Who was it that had said that "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"? Well, it seemed that the Initiative was already there, having accomplished through science what should have been possible only by using some very dark magic.
While still mulling over these concepts in his head, his ears pricked at the sounds of approaching footsteps. By the sounds of it, there seemed to be only a single set, so he wasn't overly worried. He had no idea if this Adam projected an aura or not, but whoever it was that had decided to take a stroll in the cemetery after dark apparently didn't possess one – a vampire most likely, then.
'Oh, you gotta be kidding me!' he chuckled mentally as the platinum-blonde apparition in a long leather duster stepped into view carrying a brown paper bag that appeared to be full of cigarette cartons and bags of blood.
Spike was having one of the best evenings in a long while. The stray cat litter he had accidentally found in a back alley had been an incredible stroke of luck. Never hesitating, he had taken the furry bunch to a local dealer who had traded them in for his current haul. Now, close to "home" – the Hawley crypt at Restfield – he decided he'd pop his copy of Fawlty Towers into the VCR and have a nice, relaxed night in the company of Basil Fawlty & co with some VAT 69 -laced O neg.
So, naturally, just when things were in all appearances close to perfect, the carpet was violently pulled out from under his feet.
"Well, well, well... William the Bloody with a chip in his head," an amused voice greeted him from close by and slightly above his head.
"Oh, bugger!" he groaned at the voice he had hoped he'd never have to hear again and very nearly dropped his bag of winnings.
"Hello, Spike," Rowan greeted the vampire evenly as he jumped down and landed a few feet away from him.
"Well, doesn't this just take the cake," Spike spat out. "The Slayer's little pet demon is back."
"Sticks and stones," Rowan shrugged indifferently. "The last time I saw you, you were on your way to win Drusilla back. How did that one work out for you?"
"None of your fucking business, Pretty Boy," Spike growled angrily. What was it about that damn demon that got such a rile out of him with just a few words? "Fuck off and stay that way. I hate you."
"No, you don't, but thanks for the sentiment," Rowan grinned at the seething vampire. Spike was such a bundle of conflicting emotions that teasing him was like shooting fish in a barrel.
'Hmmm, gotta remember that one,' Spike made a mental note. 'He's got a way with words, gotta give the bastard that.' "Piss on you," he countered vocally and started walking away from the scene.
"Didn't know you were into water sports," Rowan raised an eyebrow at the vampire's receding back. "You live and learn."
"Doesn't any damn thing faze you?" Spike half-groaned, half-sighed in resignation and stopped in his tracks. He knew when he was beaten.
"Very little," Rowan answered simply. "Wanna go for a homecoming drink?"
"Yeah, ok."
"Double shot of O neg, Willy, the good stuff, and a pitcher," Spike announced after he had sauntered over to the bar desk.
"Bad day?" Willy inquired neutrally, just like the good barkeep he was.
"That's one way to put it," Spike snorted. "Besides the army boys being all over town, everything looked pretty much hunky dory until..." He was interrupted by a heavy hand on his shoulder. "Yeah, what's up?" he practically groaned without looking around.
A split second later a demon's face hit the desk next to his seat forcefully enough to rattle the glasses piled on top of it. The rebound sent the demon sprawling to the floor.
"Nygro," Rowan shrugged at Spike's raised eyebrow as he sat down next to the vampire. "Never liked their kind. No respect for common courtesy rules."
"I bet they must fucking love you too," Spike dead-panned, hiding a smile.
"Whatever. Hello, Willy."
"Oh, it's you," Willy responded evenly, as if Rowan had just been gone for a day or so. "And as yourself this time. The usual?"
"Bring Pretty Boy here a few tequila shots as well," Spike cut in. "It's on him."
"Tequila, huh?" Rowan mused as he lowered the empty shot glass to the table. He and Spike had retreated to a corner booth after Willy laid down their order on a platter.
"Good stuff, yeah?" Spike nodded as he tossed down his first O neg. Near the bar desk the Nygro demon clambered unsteadily back to his feet and left quietly.
"Don't know...," Rowan frowned slightly. "Feels peculiar."
"Like...?"
"Like it wouldn't be that bad of an idea to rip your head off right now."
"Whurgh?"
"I'm kidding," Rowan giggled. This tequila was definitely good stuff. "You should have seen the look on your face."
"Bastard," Spike muttered and took a long pull from his beer.
"Why, what an awful thing to say, William," Rowan continued giggling. "Comments like that might make me think you don't like me anymore."
"What makes you think I liked you in the first place?"
"Well...," Rowan drawled with a smirk. "When I kissed you back then, I thought there was something there..."
"Are you fucking high or what?" Spike hissed and took a covert look around. Everyone in the bar seemed to be very actively trying to ignore them.
"Yes, no... maybe," Rowan shrugged and took a drink from his Bloody Mary. "Y'know, William, Morgaine didn't have a very high opinion of you."
"The fuck you just said?" Spike nearly chocked on his second O neg.
"She seemed to think I was partly responsible for corrupting you," Rowan answered, raising the second tequila shot in a mock salute.
Acting basically on instinct Spike slapped the shot glass away from Rowan's hand sending it clattering to the floor. "Get the fuck away from me!" he growled menacingly, leaning over the table.
Rowan rose slowly to his feet, leaning in as well. "In my books you're pretty much ok, Spike," he told the vampire quietly. "There isn't anything I personally hold against you, but you know where my loyalties lie. Should it ever come to that, I won't think twice before dusting you. See you, William."
Still feeling more than a little light-headed, Rowan left the seething vampire and stepped over to the bar. "My credit still ok, Willy?" he winked at the barkeep.
"Solid," Willy nodded.
"Great. Give Spike whatever he wants, even if he orders the most ridiculously expensive stuff just out of spite. I'll settle the tab the next time you see me. Oh, which reminds me. I have a small souvenir for you at my place. Something you might appreciate."
"They treat you well in New Zealand?"
"How did you...? Never mind, be seeing you."